MetaFilter posts tagged with mediterraneanhttp://www.metafilter.com/tags/mediterranean
Posts tagged with 'mediterranean' at MetaFilter.Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:51:46 -0800Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:51:46 -0800en-ushttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss60"We thought we'd rather die in a plastic boat than die there."http://www.metafilter.com/153478/We%2Dthought%2Dwed%2Drather%2Ddie%2Din%2Da%2Dplastic%2Dboat%2Dthan%2Ddie%2Dthere
"<a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/129852790996/for-the-next-several-days-im-going-to-be-sharing">For the next several days, I'm going to be sharing stories</a> from refugees who are currently making their way across Europe." <a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/">Humans of New York</a> went to Greece (and will go to other locations) to talk to newly-arrived refugees fleeing Iraq as well as some locals. It will be posting their stories and photos. There are <a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/130207261791/my-father-was-a-farmer-and-we-had-eight-siblings">spots of kindness</a>, however, as you'd expect, they are largely <a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/130141503336/there-is-no-security-in-baghdad-we-lived-in">terrifying</a> and <a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/130085731641/my-husband-and-i-sold-everything-we-had-to-afford">tragic</a>. (Warning: Human suffering and death.) (There appear to be no tags specifically for these stories. They are just going to be the only stories that appear on the <a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/">index page</a> for the next several days.) tag:metafilter.com,2015:site.153478Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:51:46 -0800ignignokt"They were looking for a better life."http://www.metafilter.com/148968/They%2Dwere%2Dlooking%2Dfor%2Da%2Dbetter%2Dlife
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/world/europe/italy-migrants-capsized-boat-off-libya.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news">Hundreds Feared Dead After Boat Filled With Migrants Capsizes in Mediterranean <small>[New York Times]</small></a> <blockquote>"For the past several years, Europe has been confronted with hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving illegally from Africa and the Middle East, many of them fleeing war and poverty. Italy has been in the vanguard of rescue efforts, with its Navy and Coast Guard ships rescuing more than 130,000 people last year in a widely praised program known as Mare Nostrum."</blockquote> Related:
- Italian PM calls for emergency summit as up to 700 migrants drown. <small>[<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/italian-prime-minister-matteo-renzi-emergency-summit-700-drown-mediterranean">The Guardian</a>]</small>
- Pope Francis asks world to help Italy with migrants. <small>[<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/pope-francis-asks-world-italy-migrants-150418225708871.html">Aljazeera</a>]</small>
- A Magnet For African Migrants, Italy Seeks A New Approach <small>[<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/03/12/289015729/a-magnet-for-african-migrants-italy-seeks-a-new-approach">NPR</a>] [March 12, 2014]</small>
- Libya migrants: Boats with 1,150 refugees head to Italy in wake of Mediterranean drowning disaster. <small>[<a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/libya-migrants-boats-1150-refugees-head-italy-wake-drowning-disaster-1496555">International Business Times</a>]</small>
- Italy downplays, Obama mum on drowned Christian migrants. <small>[<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/17/italy-downplays-obama-mum-drowned-christian-migran/">Washington Times</a>]</small>
- Muslim migrants 'threw Christians overboard during row on boat from Libya to Italy', say police. <small>[<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/muslim-migrants-accused-of-throwing-christians-overboard-during-row-on-boat-from-libya-to-italy-10184025.html">The Independent</a>]</small>
- The deaths this week are a wake-up call. We need a change of direction. <small>[<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/deaths-week-are-wake-call-we-need-change-direction">New Statesman</a>]</small> tag:metafilter.com,2015:site.148968Sun, 19 Apr 2015 16:43:34 -0800FizzI became the world's leading expert on how I'm supposed to eat.http://www.metafilter.com/141921/I%2Dbecame%2Dthe%2Dworlds%2Dleading%2Dexpert%2Don%2Dhow%2DIm%2Dsupposed%2Dto%2Deat
"So I decided on a radical experiment. <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/nutrition/Man-vs--Food.html">I would spend eight weeks each on six different plans</a> representing the various options for would-be dieters, from popular fads to clinical studies: the Abs Diet, the Paleo Diet for Athletes, the Mediterranean Prescription, the Okinawa Program, the advice of a personal nutritionist, and the USDA's nutritional pyramid. My hypothesis: By applying the same discipline to nutrition that I apply to cycling, I'd be able to measure these diets against the claims of their authors. Each one would have something to teach me; each would also fail me. And along the way, I became the world's leading expert on how I'm supposed to eat." tag:metafilter.com,2014:site.141921Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:02:15 -0800stoneweaverA cartographic history of why North, not East or South, is uphttp://www.metafilter.com/136772/A%2Dcartographic%2Dhistory%2Dof%2Dwhy%2DNorth%2Dnot%2DEast%2Dor%2DSouth%2Dis%2Dup
<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html">How the north ended up on top of the map</a> is an article by Nick Danforth, author/curator of <a href="http://www.midafternoonmap.com/">(The/Mid) Afternoon Map blog</a>, detailing how the north-up orientation came to be the default orientation, looking beyond Eurocentrism to Byzantine monks and Majorcan Jews who set the path for modern cartography. If you want more information, you might enjoy the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cartography">Wikipedia article on the history of cartography</a>, or you can really dig deep with the three-volume text, <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/index.html"><em>The History of Cartography</em></a>, which is available in full from the University of Chicago Press online, split into individual PDFs for each chapter. In the main article, Danforth starts by noting that early Egyptian maps placed south at the top, likely <a href="http://www.laits.utexas.edu/cairo/history/ancient/ancient.html">oriented by the flow of the Nile</a>, and that Arab map makers, including <a href="http://basementgeographer.com/muhammad-al-idrisi-and-the-tabula-rogeriana/">Muhammad al-Idrisi</a>, may have followed some practices of previous Chinese cartographers who also <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=vHy44e1nRXcC&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q&f=false">oriented south at the top of their maps</a> (Google books preview). Alternatively, early Christian maps from Europe <a href="http://blog.visualmotive.com/2009/ebstorf-mappamundi/">orienting maps with east at the top, the direction of Paradise, as seen in the Ebstorf Mappamundi</a>.
"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mappa_mundi">Mappa mundi</a>" is the any medieval European map of the world, and can be very roughly translated as "cloth or napkin (of the) world". <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=0s_EzfsZ5KoC&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false">The most common were tripartite</a> (Gbp) or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map">T and O maps</a>, named so because they split the known world into three parts, and contained the world in a circle. On top was Asia, the lower left was Europe, and the lower right Africa. (And thus, <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/titles/167538516/on-the-map-a-mind-expanding-exploration-of-the-way-the-world-looks#excerpt">the maps were <em>oriented</em> with east at the top</a>.) The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_River_%28Russia%29">Don (Tanais) river</a> separated Europe from Asia, the Nile (or the Red Sea) separated Asia from Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea separated Africa from Europe.
There are more complex versions of the usually small T-O maps, often called <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/207_Beatus.html">Beatus maps</a>, as they were inspired by or copied from the original map by Beatus of Liébana, found in the illuminated copies of his <em>Commentaria In Apocalypsin</em>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentary_on_the_Apocalypse">Commentary on the Apocalypse</a>. Again, east is at the top of these maps.
The third category of medieval maps are the "complex" maps, larger and more detailed than the tripartite T-O maps or the quadripartite Beatus maps. One example is <a href="http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/map1.html">the Psalter World Map</a>, which retains the east-at-top orientation, and serves as "a visual encyclopedia, embracing ancient history, politics, scripture and ethnography as well as geography" (best viewed with Flash to experience all the features of this online presentation).
All this is not to say that there are no historical maps with north at the top. One of the earliest remaining maps is the Babylonian "<a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=362000&partId=1">map of the world</a>," which <a href="http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/cartography.htm#prehistoric">was oriented to the prevalent winds, with northwest at the top</a>. Then there are the <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/201_Macrobius.html">Macrobian World Maps</a>, which are generally based on hemispheric maps of Macrobius from the fifth century, depicting a spherical world, divided into different horizontal zones (sets of examples: <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/201_Macrobius.html">one</a>, <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/201.2_Examples_of_Macrobius_Maps.html">two</a>, <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/201.3_Examples.html">three</a>).
<a href="https://www.lib.umn.edu/apps/bell/map/PORTO/INTRO/intro2.html">Portolan charts</a> (deep link; <a href="https://www.lib.umn.edu/apps/bell/map/PORTO/porto.html">framed site</a>) were a distinctly different sort of map, "made to get seafarers from home to another place and back again safely." And <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104713.html">they are surprisingly accurate, given the technology available at the time</a>, as long as you didn't try to use them to get across the Atlantic. Replicating the curvature of the earth on a flat map tended to skew the attempts to map longer distances.
At first, these charts, though useful for navigating, were <a href="https://www.lib.umn.edu/apps/bell/map/PORTO/CAN/index89.html">not consistently designed, with no real up or down, and no consistency in the direction of images or text</a>, but all included a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_rose">compas rose</a> that clearly indicated north. Enter the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorcan_cartographic_school">Majorcan cartographic school</a>, who weren't so much a formal group as they were a local association of predominantly Jewish cartographers, cosmographers and navigational instrument-makers and some Christian associates who experimented and developed their own cartographic techniques. Amongst them, the tradition of the compass rose pointing to the North Star, much as a compass would.
Interesting tangent: <a href="http://www1.chinaculture.org/created/2005-06/21/content_69887.htm">China first developed a compass, known as the South Pointer, in their in Warring States Period (475-221BC)</a>. Refined versions included the the south-pointing spoon and fish, and finally the marine compass, which <a href="http://www1.chinaculture.org/created/2005-06/21/content_69887_2.htm">made its way to Europe by way of nautical Arabian traders</a>.
Still, in the 15th century, maps were made with varying orientations, <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/241_Bianco_World_Maps.html">east</a>, <a href="http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/map2.html">south</a> (best with Flash), and <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/240_de_Virgas_World_Map.html">north</a>, yet all remain centered on or near Italy or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCnting_Clover_Leaf_Map">Jerusalem</a>. But thanks to a <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=459">13th century rediscovery and (re)creation of maps</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_%28Ptolemy%29">Ptolemy's <em>Geography</em></a> by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximus_Planudes">Greek monk Maximus Planudes</a>, <a href="http://www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/maphist/minds/ptolemysmap/ptolemy.html">the world was set with north on top</a>. The example was followed by such notable map-makers as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_Mercator">Gerardus Mercator</a>, <a href="http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/256_Martellus_World_Maps.html">Henricus Martellus (Germanus)</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Waldseem%C3%BCller">Martin Waldseemüller</a> (whose <a href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/waldexh.html">map "named America"</a>).
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If this leaves you wanting to know more about the history of cartography, you can read:
<ul><li><a href="https://archive.org/details/portolanchartsth00stevrich"><em>Portolan charts; their origin and characteristics</em></a> (1911) by Edward Luther Stevenson on Archive.org;
<li><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=oX5JAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false">Ancient Orientation Unveiled</a> (Gbp), an article by A. L. Frothingham in the American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, Vol. 21 (1917),
<li>read through <a href="http://www.midafternoonmap.com">Afternoon Map</a>, which strives to be the "number one Ottoman/Turkish/Middle Eastern/Balkan cartography blog on the internet,"
<li><a href="http://cartographic-images.net">browse Cartographic-Images.net</a>, with its 163 monographs and 1,688 images, or
<li>download the entire three glorious, searchable volumes of <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/index.html"><em>The History of Cartography</em></a> from U of Chicago, split into individual chapters, which was <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/128210/The-Poetics-and-Politics-of-Picturing-the-World#5012749">previously mentioned in a comment</a>, but otherwise not featured or referenced on MetaFilter.</li></li></li></li></li></ul> tag:metafilter.com,2014:site.136772Tue, 18 Feb 2014 14:46:56 -0800filthy light thiefExtra History - The Punic Warshttp://www.metafilter.com/132461/Extra%2DHistory%2DThe%2DPunic%2DWars
Extra Credits (Previously, <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/103189/Extra-Credits">[1]</a> <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/119537/Crossing-a-line">[2]</a>) was recently approached by Creative Assembly, the team behind the Total War series of games. With Total War: Rome II coming out and Creative Assembly determining what to do with the remainder of their marketing budget, they decided to finance Extra Credits on doing a history of the Punic Wars. Extra Credits gladly accepted, of course, and has now completed the saga. <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/extra-history-the-punic-wars-begin">Extra History: The Punic Wars</a> (<a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/extra-history-the-second-punic-war-begins">2</a>, <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/extra-history-the-second-punic-war-rages-on">3</a>, <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/extra-history-the-conclusion-of-the-second-punic-war">4</a>) tag:metafilter.com,2013:site.132461Tue, 01 Oct 2013 07:09:48 -0800NavelgazerSwimming between continentshttp://www.metafilter.com/93887/Swimming%2Dbetween%2Dcontinents
It's difficult to swim between most continents. But <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10678132">swimming between Asia and Europe</a> is relatively easy, despite the ordeal of swimming the Mediterranean across the <a href="http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=160320">Bosporus</a>, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_and_Leander">Leander</a> crossing the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/sep/30/escape.turkey?page=all">Hellespont</a>. tag:metafilter.com,2010:site.93887Mon, 19 Jul 2010 03:57:21 -0800twoleftfeetSea mucus. Yuck.http://www.metafilter.com/85784/Sea%2Dmucus%2DYuck
OK, this looks bad. Disgusting and really bad. <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091008-marine-mucilage-video.html">Sea "Mucus" Blobs Pose Threat</a> <small>(video from National Geographic)</small>. Some photos (again from National Geographic) <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/photogalleries/ocean-mucus-sea-pictures/index.html">here</a>. tag:metafilter.com,2009:site.85784Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:29:38 -0800flapjax at midniteI'll never let gohttp://www.metafilter.com/83544/Ill%2Dnever%2Dlet%2Dgo
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090723/sc_nm/us_italy_shipwrecks">Archaeologists find graveyard of sunken Roman ships.</a> Information on how such a shipwreck is discovered available from the <a href="http://www.auroratrust.com/projects/mediterranean_shipwrecks.html">Aurora Trust</a> site. tag:metafilter.com,2009:site.83544Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:32:05 -0800shakespeherianGot No Milk and No Honeyhttp://www.metafilter.com/71256/Got%2DNo%2DMilk%2Dand%2DNo%2DHoney
Bemoaning the state of music today? Might you try a little bit of <a href="http://www.nanuchka.com/">NaNuchKa</a>, a Brooklyn-Based, Isreali-born rock trio well outside of the fray. Start things out light with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5W5yQBBS6I&NR=1">Red</a>, before moving on to some experimentalism with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lB6rRkPQMM&NR=1">Oh Yeah, Says Who</a>. And if you really want an emotional punch, try <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=W9Af11K_W14">Mediterranean</a>, "a song about Isreal." Enjoy! tag:metafilter.com,2008:site.71256Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:06:29 -0800NavelgazerNew Islamic Art Exhibition Sitehttp://www.metafilter.com/60629/New%2DIslamic%2DArt%2DExhibition%2DSite
The new <a href="http://www.discoverislamicart.org/exhibitions/ISL/">'Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean'</a> site incorporates material from 14 countries through 18 exhibition sites that explore the the cultural and artistic heritage of Islamic dynasties spanning 1200 years. <small>[<a href="http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART46500.html">via</a>]</small>. tag:metafilter.com,2007:site.60629Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:27:28 -0800peacayArtservehttp://www.metafilter.com/29906/Artserve
<a href="http://rubens.anu.edu.au/">Welcome to ArtServe</a>: Art &amp; Architecture
mainly from the Mediterranean Basin
and Japan. tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.29906Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:42:46 -0800hama7